My main interest is field biology, especially herpetology, which I can
trace my earliest interest in plants and animals as a young child
growing up in the Northeast.

Prior to coming to Valencia in 1984 I worked as a biologist at Tall Timbers Research Station, Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory, Department of Herpetology at the Fort Worth
Zoo,and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas. My field
trips have taken me all over the United States through the New World
and Old World Tropics.

I have deposited  many  animal and plant specimens
over the years at such institutions as the Museum of Natural History (
Museum of Comparative Zoology) at Harvard, American Museum of Natural
History, Smithsonian Institution, Florida Museum of Natural History,
Chelonian Research Institute, University of Texas at Arlington, and
the Institute of Systematic Botany at the University of South Florida.

I currently teach Fundamentals of Biology II, Neotropical Biology,
Neotropical Ecology, Ethnobotany, and Field Biology. In Neotropical
Biology I travel with students to the remote rainforests of Guyana. In
Field Biology I travel with students to southern India where we visit
the Madras Crocodile Bank and learn about their conservation efforts
tos ave endangered crocodilians. We also watch the indigenous Irula
people carry out their great skills of tracking venomous snakes and
collecting them for venom extractions. The venom will processed into antivenom, which will later be used around the world.

The highlight of the course is a 16 hour train trip to the jungles of the
Western Ghats where meet famed herpetologist and conservationist Rom
Whitaker and visit his Agumbe Rainforest Research Station. This is the
only King Cobra preserve in the world.